The sacrifices I make for my professional organizations

I'm missing it to attend today's ISTE Board meeting: the Eugene Celebration Parade.

Why does this feel like a sacrifice? Because the Society for the Legitimization of the Ubiquitous Gastropods - or SLUGs - are marching in the parade. Excuse me - participating, not marching, since slugs being monopods can't march.

It may have been my one and only chance to see this group in action. Rats. My kind of people.

Glorious Gastropause (aka Leigh Anne Jasheway-Bryant) snorts at the notion of order: "The celebration is about being out of step." Thomas Boyd The Register-Guard ""Slugs do not march," said Slug Queen Inspira Gastropodium. "Slugs have one foot; it's physically impossible. They slither, they slime, and they crawl on their bellies, but they do not march."

Why I belong to ISTE

Last week I gave my reasons for paying my dues to ALA/AASL. Since I am also an active member of ISTE (International Society for Technology in Education), I thought I ought be fair and look at why I pay my dues and volunteer and write for that "other" national professional organization to which I believe all school library media specialists ought to belong.  Or simply join if they don't see ALA as a good fit.

First, dues are not the issue with ISTE that they are with ALA/AASL -  $79 vs. $160. The basic membership includes one SIG (Special Interest Group) like SIGMS (Media Specialist) and one journal like Leading & Learning. ISTE is not a library association, but education organization, and school librarians have no higher or lower standing in ISTE than they do in ALA. And just as all librarians are represented broadly by ALA, so are all educators represented generally by ISTE.

I have concerns about ISTE, but they are quite different from those I have about ALA. If ALA is the dowdy old aunt of the family who needs to be encouraged to get out of the house and try something new but upholds cherished values, ISTE is the rowdy teenager whose values and character are not firmly formed and needs guidance. It's easy for the glitz and "gee-whiz" of technology to overshadow the primary purpose of the organization - to help educators learn how to evaluate and use technology to better educate students. This is why ISTE needs librarians as members - to provide some balance and little common sense to the organization. So being a member or ISTE and...

1. Paying dues gives me a voice. ISTE needs seasoning. As a member, I can express my concerns regarding any head-long rush of technology adoption. Counter the profit-motivated push by companies to blindly add technologies to the education mix. Promote research, demand assessment, and raise concern about the safe and ethical use of technologies. To remind ISTE that in its mission statement - "providing leadership and service to improve teaching and learning by advancing the effective use of technology in education" - the operative word is "effective."

2. Paying dues shows I support and recognize the need to know about cutting edge educational practices. Any school librarian who does not get and stay on the forefront of accessing, using, communicating and evaluating information in digital formats and is not seen as a building technology leader is irrelevant. Simple as that.

3. Paying dues gives me more opportunity for inter-species communications. ISTE has a great mix of educator types. Technology specialists, of course, but also lots of classroom teachers, administrators, college professors, and librarians. When we librarians present at AASL conferences and write for ALA/AASL journals, we are preaching to the choir. Writing and speaking through ISTE gets the sermon about the importance of good libraries to the sinners who actually need to hear it.

4. Paying dues gives me access to NECC. Yes, I have described this mega-conference as a "love fest to all things that go beep," finding it far too vendor driven. But it is exciting and motivational. This blog is a direct result of hearing David Weinberger's NECC keynote in Philadephia in 2005. Unlike most ALA conferences, I actually attend sessions at NECC. Oh, the organizational work of ISTE (affiliates, SIGS, committees) is all pretty much done the days just prior to NECC or virtually - no need for the  expensive "midwinter conference" idiocy.

5. Paying dues shows my support for the NETS standards. This is the set of learning standards the nation's states and schools actually use when it comes to what kids need to know and be able to do with information and technology. Librarians, we need to make sure the NETS  focus remains on information literacy, problem-solving, communication and the use of HOTS. The "refreshed" NETS do this and even add a "creativity" component. Now if we could just merge them with the AASL standards...

6. Paying dues gives me the chance to influence legislative lobbying efforts. These efforts of ISTE need some serious work. At the present time unfortunately, it's all about the money - making sure E2T2, E-rate and other national funding sources are preserved. Important to be sure, but less important in the long run that ISTE being a voice on education policy, especially in speaking out against issues like DOPA. I don't think ISTE "gets" intellectual freedom. School librarians, your voice is needed here very much. Or do you like your Internet blocked?

7. Did I mention paying dues gives me complaining rights? This is tough for me since I have served on the ISTE board for the past three years and gotten to know both the other board members and CEO Don Knezek and the ISTE staff. I genuinely like these people. They are smart, dedicated, competent, and have their hearts in the right place. They care about the organization and its members. But as members, we not only have the right, but the obligation to try making all our professional organizations better through constructive criticism - including ISTE.

I said it before and I will say it again, "Joining a professional organization is not necessarily about the good we as individuals get from membership, but the differences our contributions in both money and time make to the profession as a whole - and to those whom the profession serves. It isn't always about you!" This goes for ISTE as much as it does ALA/AASL.

School librarians, join ISTE.  Sure, we'll take your dues, but it is your values and sense are what we really need.

Why I belong to ALA/AASL

 Yup, I complain about at ALA and AASL. Vociferously, broadly and publicly. I think the $160 or whatever is way too much for annual dues. I think American Libraries, the OIF, and the ALA legislative committee ignore school libraries. I've wondered many times why I bother to attend the Midwinter Conference.  The AASL Executive Director and all her staff are probably grossly over paid and treat money like it grows on trees. The ALA Board spends way to much time on resolutions that have little to do with libraries - like human rights in Guatemalan nunneries and such.

You want more?

But I still pay my dues, have done so for the past 12 years and probably will do so for the next 12. Here's why:

1.  Paying dues is how I show my support for the ideals of intellectual freedom. ALA is the one organization brave and organized enough to be listened to when censorious legislation or commentary comes up. I love ISTE, but it doesn't have this sort of conscience going for it. If ALA goes down, it will take a lot of peoples' rights to read and access information with it. That to me is absolutely horrifying.
   
2. Paying dues gives me complaining rights. I get to complain about the organizations to which I belong. If you don't belong, if you don't work in the organization, if you don't speak up - you don't get to piss and moan. Simple as that. Non-members bitching is like somebody trying to redecorate a house by throwing rocks at it from the sidewalk.  If the organization isn't perfect, it isn't because I didn't try to make it better.
   
3. Paying dues supports national library standards. AASL is the national organization that represents school libraries and as such has some gravitas on issues like standards and guidelines. These are often helpful at a building level when the "voice of authority" is required.
   
4. Paying dues gives me opportunities for inter-species communications. Reading American Libraries and attending ALA conferences put me in contact with the sometimes bizarre habits of librarians of other types - public, academic, and special. (Often very special if you know what I mean.) This interaction mostly makes me very thankful that I chose to become a school librarian.
   
5. Paying dues gives me access to Will Manly's column in American Libraries just as soon as it comes out. I do wish Will would go back to telling funny stories about library management instead of this historical boo-rah he's been doing.
   
6. Paying dues shows that I honor quality writing for children and young adults. Yes, ALA gives the Newbery and Caldecott awards (and Printz, King, Edwards, etc.) So OK, the books chosen usually suck as far as most kids are concerned, but at least someone is saying that we should be worried about quality when writing for kids.
   
7. Did I mention paying dues give me complaining rights? Let's see you form a better organization to support school librarians.
   

Joining a professional organization is not necessarily about the good we as individuals get from membership, but the differences our contributions in both money and time make to the profession as a whole - and to those whom the profession serves. It isn't always about you!

Yes, $160 or whatever is a chunk of change. You could instead buy:

• one grande latte every week for a whole year
• 2 or 3 nice suppers out with your significant other, depending on how picky you are about your wine selection
  
• 2 pairs of shoes, 10 dress shirts or a cheap sports jacket when on sale
• a 3 day pass to DisneyWorld
• about 8 books or so at Barnes & Noble if you have the membership discount
• 4 tanks of gas
• 13 copies of Machines Are the Easy Part; People Are the Hard Part

I'm not going to convince anybody to join or not to join. Just stating my reasons. I don't feel like a sap for paying my dues, but like someone who is contributing.

And I am among the most cheap and cynical people I know.